AMBER Advocate Magazine

Issue 10

The National Missing Children’s Day Ceremony takes place in Washington, D.C., with Erin Runnion, mother of murder victim Samantha Runnion, serving as the guest speaker. Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden announces a $50 million allocation from Recovery Act funds to support the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) program. Several individuals and groups are honored for their efforts in protecting children, including nurse Julie Mosbacher, who helps save a kidnapped baby in Wyoming, and Detective Neal Spector, who goes undercover online to catch fathers abusing their own children. FBI Special Agent Greg Ryman receives recognition for developing “Childfinder,” a software tool that analyzes online ads to locate prostituted children. The South Florida ICAC Task Force is honored for stopping abusive swimming coach Robert Caragol. Dakhota-Rae Brown, a fifth-grader from Wyoming, wins the national Missing Children’s Day Poster Contest. A profile on New York AMBER Alert Coordinator Gary Kelly highlights his work in enhancing the state’s program through technology, including license plate readers and alert broadcasts in New York City taxi cabs. A front-line story from South Carolina details a tense AMBER Alert case involving a former law enforcement officer who abducts his ex-girlfriend and their infant son at gunpoint; both are safely recovered in Georgia after a 13-hour standoff. Meanwhile, European countries gather in Prague, Czech Republic, for a conference on child abduction alerts, discussing challenges such as data sharing, privacy, and the development of a common toll-free number (116 000) for reporting missing children.

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